3D Printing to Metal Pouring Owl Project ~ Evan Daniels

          This weekend was a fun time at Techshop RD. They had a big open house with over 300 people in attendance. While there was a lot of amazing talent in the place and great instructors, my favorite demonstration of the day was 3D printing to metal pouring by Evan Daniels. If you want to watch the process step-by-step head over here.
           Evan promises me he is posting an Instructable on his page eventually so I'll leave it to him to tell you the technical details. Mostly, I loved seeing what you can do with 3D printers in a reverse life-hack. This is the first test run of an owl Evan printed on his 3D printer from Luis's class back in March for Plastibots. You can see the print resolution was pretty good on the sample left. It's shockingly easy to make sand molds from PLA 3D prints simply by making the mold and then melting it out in an oven at 400 degrees for 4 hours. You can see all the goo dripping out below the mold as Evan demonstrates here how simple the process was. The final owl is pictured above. You can see some sand stuck to the mold around the feet for some reason (however...not bad for a first run!). The detail overall was shockingly good in raw form before clean-up. 
            I felt so inspired seeing him work. Evan always leaves me feeling recharged with a new sense of energy and possibility. Great stuff! I feel can't wait to try my hand at making some custom clasps and cool coat buttons. Anyone else getting some ideas for stuff they would like to try in the future?

Have a great day people! I hope that you are inspired too.

November 27th: 7-9 pm: Claire Fraiser and Tinkers

           I have a short list of old and dear friends I can count on one hand, maybe two, of people who have known the real me for years and still love me for who I am. I am a terribly flawed person, and don't think I understood at 14 or 16 how much that would mean to me years later, but it's something that most days floors me a little.
          The second half of this gift is you get to see these people you knew as fellow awkward teens turn into beautiful interesting adults. Or maybe I was just the awkward one. Anyways, one of these people for me is Claire Fraser (you can see her here holding this sweet bear skull at an auction appraisal event at right). She is one of those cool people who while I was busy being a tomboy and getting into all kinds of trouble, managed to snag herself a cool degree in art history and today works as a cataloger or art appraiser at Leland Little Auction and Estate Sales (Claire I apologize if I have not given your job adequate billing here as I know you are super smart and do a lot more than that.).
           I am letting everyone in the group meet her for a night to  meet someone who sits on the other side of the gallery world from us artisans and craftsmen. A lot of people seem to make applying and getting into galleries a black box process and put many of their personal bias into the process. Instead you really need to understand what drives a gallery owner or staff to pick particular works of art and come up with a number. A critical eye is necessary for both sides. As many of the group expand their adventures into stores this new year, I would like to make it easier for everyone to understand where and why those sales commissions disappear to. Plus I get to buy a good friend beer for a night!

7-8 pm: Claire Fraiser (A Day in the Life Working in An Auction House/Gallery): Take a step behind the fun and fascinating curtain of art auctions and gallery adventures with my good friend, Claire Fraiser. She works at LeLand Little, a wonderful local auction house with an amazing reputation for quality and taste. Learn from an insider's perspective what does and does not work. Get yourself acquainted with a local art dealer with a great reputation.

8-9 pm: The Art of the Tinker (Soda Can Art): One of the oldest trades, tinkers are the stuff of legend and folk lore as the village gossips plying their wares from town to town repairing pots and bent forks. In modern times, you can make awesome art from tin and soda cans you have laying around the house with a few simple tools:

gloves
scissors
empty soda cans
ribbons
punches
paint (optional)

We will be making custom Christmas ornaments and lanterns for the holidays to take home. Please feel free to bring in empty clean soda cans you can manage to find and plan to take home extra goodies! The picture here is from a great Instructable on how to make tin can butterflies.

As usual we will be at:

Roth Brewing
5901 Triangle Brewing
Raleigh, NC 27617

Textile Friday: Deconstructing A Master, Viktor Luna

               This past week, I sprang for a luxury in the midst of all the seasonal chaos. The up and downside to being sold out. One of my favorite designers I love to follow had a sample sale, Viktor Luna. Sample sales are great because they let you peek inside the mind of designer before the piece is so polished by production that it's almost impossible to see the individual flavor behind it. If you've never met Viktor Luna before, I encourage you to go over to his homepage. You'll see him smiling in all his photos and his clothes have this matching happy sunny vibe. I wanted to see what that happy smile translated like into fabric. Just look at this gold military inspired shirt from two seasons ago. The color and fabric were crazy, but the tailoring and construction were beautiful. I took tons of photos with notes here.
            Dress shirts are a fairly standard item so I doubt there's any chance of someone ripping Viktor's design from the photos, but as always, please respect other designers' work. Mostly, shirts are an item that requires a lot of skill to pull off so I feel seeing one allows you to get a measure of a designer's ability without threatening their overall collection and ascetics.
            First off, after the shirt arrived, I took it out of the package and hung it on one of the mannequins. The fabric was much heavier than typical shirt weight I was used to which had to be a mess to sew, but I was impressed at how Viktor pulled it all together. Everything was folded and french seamed which seemed like total overkill, but who am I to pick on another designer's attention to detail? I was especially taken with the little details like his button placement (flawless) and buttonholes which are much harder to do than they appear at first glance. You can see the shirt unbuttoned here inside out is still as flawlessly finished as the reverse side. The bottom button on my form pulled slightly, but I think my form is a size bigger than his so the hips are probably pulling it, not a flaw in his sewing.
      Also, the darts were great.  Perfect at the bust and back. In general, I only found one pull out line in sewing to construct this entire piece on the left cuff. I like seeing that confidence in sewing.
       Which leads me to the two major areas for improvement in the piece which were really the opposite sides of the same coin. Samples are never perfect, that's the nature of the beast. It's an opportunity to see one's thoughts in thread before sending the final piece into shops. There was unusual fabric and thread construction which hurt the overall quality and ruined the level of construction in the piece. The fabric was heavier than typical for a dress shirt which made it harder than necessary to sew for the designer and poor draping overall. It also contributed to overall flaws within the piece. You can see him struggling to make it work (and he has great sewing skills) in the thread tension. The needle kept skipping from under tension on the top and sometimes his folds at the cuffs and collars didn't even up quite right. This probably could have been fixed by better thread and a different needle, but samples are where you learn for next time. Overall, very pleased and enjoyed looking at this lovely shirt. Thank you Viktor. Best of luck on your travels! I'm sure you'll do well.

Fashion is the Icing. Life is the Cake.

            "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." ~Thomas Edison
     
             Wow, it's been a great week. We're busy sewing away new surprises for next week and stocking local shelves. This is the busy time of year. Hopefully everyone got a chance to get out and vote yesterday in the weather however you voted. I've been thinking a lot about fashion and crafting lately when the latest project is busy dancing through my fingers. About what makes a successful project and and unsuccessful one. Thomas Edison was a big believer in the idea that art and inventions must something people actually want. He's quoted as saying, "The value of an idea lies in the using of it."
           There's a separate catagory in fashion for designs that serve a function called utilitarian fashion. Kinda like a spoon can be beautiful, but it also serves a very specific purpose. Besides the backstory to the Matrix ("There is no spoon."), getting things from your plate to your mouth is an important function of silverware. In our disposable culture of anything goes, I think I may start filling my office with straight forward classic designs to remind me to serve my customers in everything I do. Even if it's as simple as a spoon. Because fashion for designers is a way to share your life experiences and ideas with customers. Real products are where it's at.
           What is real for you in your life?

Textile Friday: La Bricoleuse and Rachel Pollock

                 I love reading. Give me a good book or blog and you're guaranteed to make my week. One of my favorite blogs to read is La Bricoleuse which comes from the word for "putter around." When I originally started reading her, I thought that the blog would be all about hats from her millinery background. Instead it is lovely backstage pass to the world of theater and costume as she teaches at UNC. I always feel supremely refreshed and inspired when I get done reading one of her posts as if the cobwebs of daily routine have been shaken away. She exposes one to so many of the masters of the craft, new and old.
                 But sometimes, she does hats! This past month she did a expose of her time in England studying hat making (yum) and think the post is really work sharing here. My favorite part was how many video links she included! I'm a visual person where a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth 10,000. So let me share my fun with you. Enjoy! I have gotten to share one of my loves with you. Next week hopefully I have a wonderful surprise if everything works out.

Fall Shows: Craftland and Acorn to Oak Handmade

              I love to watch Nash smile at me. He's got a look just for me, that's mine alone. He has sea eyes that change with his mood, and for me they turn a brilliant shade of green. It's often accompanied by a soft quiet, "I love you." I would probably walk naked barefoot in the snow for ten miles for that look (and we all know I hate cold weather.). Thankfully for the eyes of little children everywhere, that level of sacrifice has not been required. There's an even better version of this whenever I wear lace or leather and he sees me. His eyes get gold flecks of happiness in them.
             This season we are sold out until at least January with a particular client doing private label work in utilitarian fashion which is saving lives. I'm really enjoying it. It has given me some unexpected flexibility to follow Nash's smile and make a collection simply to make people I know happy. And hopefully see some more happy Nash eyes. It is my wish for you too to see you loved one's eyes light up this season.
            We will be showing at two holiday shows as well as posting a small selection online. I want to stress that these will be very limited edition collections with a small sampling of looks and pieces so hopefully people will enjoy their pieces of art as much as I did making them.

Craftland, The  Scrap Exchange, Durham, NC November 16th- January 18th- This is an annual holiday collection of local artists and crafters focusing on reused and recycled items. I will be showing a small collection of handmade accessories there.

Acorn to Oak Handmade Etsy Team Arts and Craft Sale, The Visual Art Exchange, Raleigh, NC- December 8th from 12-6 pm- A one day show of fun looks and custom designers here in the Triangle. I love the variety of this show our team puts on semi-annually. This time we are partnering with the Visual Art Exchange in downtown Raleigh which promises to be a fun new twist.

For Everyone who is local, can't wait to see you at one or both shows. For everyone else, please feel free to follow online. We look forward to seeing you this season.

Textile Friday: The Village of Yesteryear

            One of the things Nash and I really love, are vintage arts and crafts. Nash is a history major, while I have no reasonable excuse. We often talk about traveling Ren Faires in a few decades with custom blacksmith suits of armor and my indulged love of Victorian and period costumes. That however is a long way off.
             There's many showings of traditional crafts in our state for which I feel lucky. My favorite is the Village of Yesteryear. It's an annual show put on at the NC State Fair for the past 60 years and hosts a ton of local friendly talent. This was my first serious exposure to the arts and crafts. This loom you see here was the first time I ever saw textiles being woven. My girl friend Charlotte Robinson would volunteer at booths when we got older weaving fabric on this particular model, but the magic of it stays with you no matter your age. There's something about a loom to a small child where the shuttle drifts back and forth at eye level for a toddler, the petals pumping, the harness and threads moving back and forth, that is simply magic.
            Even today, I love to sit and watch textile machines work. There's something musical about the rhythm of a master going about his or her task that soothes the soul. Beat. Beat. Beat. Brush. Hammer. The entire building pulses with a steady happy vibe.
                 It makes me eager to put up my knitting again or craft around the house when I get home. I always feel at peace when I'm making something. I wish that translated over at ALL to the rest of my life. Well, have a great day everyone. See ya next week.